README

This is Parrot, version 2.11.0
------------------------------
Parrot is Copyright (C) 2001-2011, Parrot Foundation.
LICENSE INFORMATION
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This code is distributed under the terms of the Artistic License 2.0.
For more details, see the full text of the license in the file LICENSE.
OVERVIEW
--------
Parrot is a virtual machine designed to efficiently compile and execute
bytecode for dynamic languages.
PREREQUISITES
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You need a C compiler, a linker, and a make program of course.
If you will be linking with the ICU library you have to download and install it
before configuring Parrot. Get it from http://site.icu-project.org/download
You also need Perl 5.8.4 or newer, and Storable 2.12 or newer
for running various configure and build scripts.
For most of the platforms that we are supporting initially, Parrot should build
out of the box. docs/parrot.pod lists the core platforms. PLATFORMS provides
reports on the platforms on which Parrot has been built and tested.
HOW TO GET PARROT FROM GITHUB
-----------------------------
I. Install Git.
Linux:
The method depends on your distribution. To install you should execute (as root or sudo <cmd>):
On Ubuntu/Debian (apt-based):
apt-get install git-core
On Red Hat, Fedora (rpm-based):
yum install git
on Gentoo (portage):
emerge -av dev-vcs/git
Windows:
There are 2 Git ports on Windows:
msysgit http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/downloads/list
TortoiseGit http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/downloads/list
Macintosh OS X:
An Internet search will locate a variety of git installers for Mac OS X,
including this:
http://help.github.com/mac-git-installation/
II. Obtaining Parrot from github.com
To get a copy of the Parrot Git repository:
git clone git://github.com/parrot/parrot.git
This will checkout the master branch by default. To create a local branch
that tracks the branch "some_branch":
git checkout -b --track some_branch origin/some_branch
All the above URLs are read-only. If you are a Parrot core developer, then
use the read-write URL:
git clone git@github.com:parrot/parrot.git
You can view the list of branches at http://github.com/parrot/parrot
INSTRUCTIONS
------------
For now, unpack your Parrot tarball, (if you're reading this, you've
probably already done that) and type
perl Configure.pl
to run the Configure script. The Configure.pl script extracts configuration
from the running perl5 program. You may need to explicitly tell Configure.pl
which compiler and linker to use. For example, to compile C files with 'cc',
C++ files with 'CC', and link everything together with 'CC', you would type
perl Configure.pl --cc=cc --cxx=CC --link=CC --ld=CC
See "perl Configure.pl --help" for more options and docs/configuration.pod
for more details.
For systems like HPUX that don't have inet_pton please run
perl Configure.pl --define=inet_aton
Running Configure.pl will generate a config.h header, a Parrot::Config
module, platform files and many Makefiles.
The file "myconfig" has an overview of configure settings.
Next, run make. (Configure.pl will tell you which version of make it
recommends for your system.)
Now, the interpreter should build. If you are building the ICU library
(this is the default on most systems), you need to use GNU make instead
(or something compatible with it).
You can test Parrot by running "make test". You can run the tests in parallel
with "make TEST_JOBS=3 test".
You can run the full test suite with
make fulltest
Note: PLATFORMS contains notes about whether test failures are expected
on your system.
You can install Parrot with:
make install
By default, this installs in /usr/local, with the Parrot executable in
/usr/local/bin. If you want to install Parrot into another location use:
perl Configure.pl --prefix=/home/joe/bird
make install
But please note that dynamic libs will not be found for non-standard
locations unless you set LD_LIBRARY_PATH or similar.
Look at docs/parrot.pod and docs/intro.pod for where to go from here. If you
have any problems, see the section "How To Submit A Bug Report" in
docs/submissions.pod. These documents are in POD format. You can view these
files with the command:
perldoc -F docs/intro.pod
CHANGES
-------
For documentation on the user-visible changes between this version and
previous versions, please see NEWS.
MAILING LISTS
-------------
The Parrot user mailing list is parrot-users@lists.parrot.org. Subscribe by
filling out the form at http://lists.parrot.org/mailman/listinfo/parrot-users .
The list is archived at http://lists.parrot.org/pipermail/parrot-users/ .
For development discussions see the information in docs/gettingstarted.pod.
FEEDBACK, PATCHES, etc.
-----------------------
See docs/submissions.pod for more information on reporting bugs and
submitting patches.
WEB SITES
---------
The following web sites have all the information you need about Parrot:
http://www.parrot.org/http://trac.parrot.org/http://docs.parrot.org/
Have fun,
The Parrot Team.